Dementia Care – Care Homes Enter & View Visit Report 2019
Download (PDF 1.42 MB)Summary of report content
This is a summary report of 8 Enter and View visits undertaken by Healthwatch Shropshire to care homes registered with CQC as providing some level of Dementia care. This included both residential and nursing homes. They spoke to 85 people in total; 28 residents (many of whom had Dementia), 17 visitors and 40 members of staff.
Findings
The residents, and their relatives or friends, who Healthwatch Shropshire spoke to were overwhelmingly happy with the care they were receiving at these eight care homes. People felt that staff knew them well and provided good care.
Staff were very positive about their places of work giving examples such as having a ‘great staff team’ around them and being ‘very proud of the excellent training they had received’.
End of Life Care was very important in these settings to avoid people having to move home as their health deteriorated. Both residents and staff we spoke to felt confident that preferences and wishes had been discussed and recorded.
Generally the care homes were dementia friendly, but in half of the homes visited Healthwatch Shropshire found issues with a lack of clear signs, particularly for toilets, and use of colour contrasts, for example light switches which are a different colour to the wall behind them making them easier to see.
Recommendations and impact
Healthwatch Shropshire made 43 recommendations across all eight homes, 23 of which were about the environment of the homes for example ‘developing the use of the outside area for residents’ and ‘installing dementia appropriate directional signs to toilets, nurses’ station and exits’. Providers were largely positive in their responses to our recommendations with 30% of recommendations acted on immediately and providers telling us they intended to act on another 42% of our recommendations in the future